


what's the one thing you regret the most and why

by Stinacat



Series: Borderline [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It's labelled angst for a reason, Mental Health Issues, but not really don't worry, hinted Freewood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2421362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stinacat/pseuds/Stinacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan ignores his phone because it's early and it woke him up. Answering it wouldn't have stopped the shit storm of course, but he might have been better prepared.</p>
<p>This is the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what's the one thing you regret the most and why

**Author's Note:**

> I was told to hurt Ryan. My wonderful sometimes-partner-in-crime OakTreeDruid is again mostly (wholly) responsible for the existence of this fic. As such I'm absolving myself of any responsibility for feelings that may arise during and after reading.
> 
> Title is actually from Geoff's AMA because his answer gets me a little every time I see it.
> 
> If you enjoy it (or even if you don't) please let me know! Have fun!

Ryan turns over with a huff, any hope of ignoring the buzz of his phone gone when it went off for the fourth time in as many minutes. He glares at the alarm clock, which tells him he hasn’t overslept, and he glares at his phone, which tells him he has three messages and a missed phone call. It’s the phone call that makes him give up on sleep, because the amplified buzz on the wooden side table is louder and more persistent than the text messages.

 

To put him in a worse mood, he doesn’t even get to answer the phone call, because whoever it is hangs up before he can answer. It’s a private number, and the only person who ever calls him on a private number is Burnie. He can’t think what Burnie would want at six in the morning on a Monday though. Ryan shrugs off the feeling that maybe something is wrong, because surely Geoff would be the one calling him then.

 

He contemplates rolling over and sleeping for another hour until his alarm goes off, but ultimately decides that will probably make him grumpier, and he might as well go in to the office early and use the time to level grind in something, or test some GTA ideas he’s had floating around. Maybe casually flirt with Gavin because that’s a game they’ve been playing for a while now.

 

Ryan’s so caught up in stumbling to the shower and wanting to get under the hottest water he can handle, he completely forgets about the text messages.

 

-

 

He’s the first one in the office, although that’s not unusual since they moved to the studio and Michael and Lindsay don’t just live across the road. So Ryan sets down his phone and wallet and ducks across to the kitchen to procure some diet coke for their bar fridge in the office and a coffee to start the day.

 

Ryan’s just decided that maybe the day won’t be that bad, despite the early wakeup, except then Geoff bursts through the door with Gavin hovering over his shoulder peering into the room. There’s something on both of their faces that makes Ryan feel uneasy, and it’s amplified when Geoff steps inside the doorway and very pointedly shuts the door behind him, so it’s just the two of them and Gavin’s disgruntled noise.

 

“Something wrong, Geoff?”

 

“I messaged you this morning, a couple times, didn’t you get them?”

 

Ryan frowns, remembering the text messages suddenly. “Oh…I forgot all about them, what’s…?”

 

Geoff looks stricken, just a little. “I have no idea how, Ryan, but some…fucking arseholes, online, found out about…I mean, about everything you went through. They must’ve been digging fucking deep, I don’t…”

 

Ryan swallows thickly and it sounds like the loudest thing he’s ever heard. He blinks, dumbfounded, and he can practically hear the slide of his eyelids. Everything feels like it’s slowed down and he clenches his teeth until he can focus only on breathing. “What um…” He sighs and it’s shuddery and that only makes it worse. “I guess it’s everywhere then. If it’s on the internet.” Dread doesn’t so much fill his stomach as it floods it. “Fuck…everyone here…”

 

Geoff’s ink covered hand is warm where it rests on his shoulder, and his fingers tighten for just a moment and any other time Ryan might laugh that it’s the hand with an anchor on it. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it.”

 

Ryan nods, and finds he can’t force anything past the lump in his throat. He also realises that it’s not the actual fact of it making him feel like this – he’d been depressed, in a catastrophically bad place, but eventually ( _just in time,_ something treacherous says in the back of his head) he’d gotten help – it’s the fact that nobody at work, none of the people he calls his closest friends, Matt, Geoff and Burnie aside, knows about it. He doesn’t want them to think he doesn’t trust them.

 

Because he does. But as far as he’s concerned there’s a line in his life that exists between then and now and he doesn’t want them to treat him differently.

 

Ryan realises that’s it. That’s the thing. Really, he’s terrified they’ll treat him like he’s delicate and broken and he _isn’t_. Not anymore, anyway.  

 

“Ry.” Geoff’s voice doesn’t sound any different. But who knows what he’s thinking?

 

Ryan feels like he’s drowning trying to force those kinds of thoughts away. “Mm?”

 

“Go home.”

 

He looks up at Geoff, alarmed. “What? I don’t want to. I want to do stuff, I-”

 

“Orders from on high. Yvonne and Matt have spoken, quite frankly Burnie and I agree. Take a day. Or a few, it’s up to you. But don’t worry about things here.” Geoff scrubs his free hand through his hair. “And maybe don’t go on Reddit, and stuff.”

 

Ryan knows he won’t win against their combined will, and really if he were to stay he’d spend the whole day slumped in his chair in the office with his headphones on refusing to talk to anyone or look around. His mother _had_ always said he was broody.

 

So instead he nods and stands up stiffly, feeling strangely detached. “Fine.”

 

Geoff wraps his hand around Ryan’s forearm before he can get too far away. “If you need anything…”

 

Ryan just nods. He barely glances at Gavin as he opens the door, but sees a strange look on his face. Still, he ignores the ‘Rye-Bread!’ called down the corridor after him and keeps his head down as he walks outside.

 

Ryan’s glad he doesn’t drink anymore.

 

-

 

He’s not surprised really, that when he gets back home and slips out of his clothes (because everything feels wrapped tight and constricting) and turns out all the lights and buries himself under pillows and his duvet and falls asleep, he dreams.

 

Well, dreams could be a strong word.

 

He knows it’s not real because he’s watching himself, like an out of body experience, and he winces when he realises what he’s seeing. The him he’s watching has thicker, darker hair and doesn’t fill out his shirt as much and is holding a bottle of cheap, nasty whisky. Is drinking it straight from the bottle.

 

Ryan can feel the loneliness settling around him like a blanket like he hasn’t felt in years. Because he has ways of coping now, because he got lucky, because…fuck he got so lucky.

 

Younger him kicks at a computer tower sitting by his desk just because, scowling at it when it catches on a monitor and doesn’t fall properly. Ryan wants to laugh at himself because hello angry drama major but the heavy-choking-dark is all around him and he can remember how it felt like he’s feeling it all over again.

 

He watches himself walk over to the closet and look down, slam the door shut, walk back and repeat. It doesn’t startle him when the nearly empty bottle goes flying against the wall and shatters, because he remembers. Remembers that exact walk from one side of the room to the closet, contemplate, walk away, walk back.

 

Except he doesn’t remember the next part. Because he never quite made himself touch the gun stashed at the bottom of the closet, let alone angle it towards himself.

 

Let alone use it.

 

-

 

Ryan wakes shaking, in a cold sweat. He’s not sure what time it is or how long he was dreaming but he can feel tears on his cheeks and the phantom cling of the heavy blanket. He pulls his duvet tighter around himself in counterpoint, because that’s real and right there against his skin and it’s light and he can take it off whenever he wants to.

 

He buries his face in the pillow he always sleeps on, breathing slow and steady until he’s only shaking a little.

 

Geoff had said don’t go on Reddit, and stuff. Ryan should’ve listened. There are people out there who know more about him than he thinks even his mother does, now. And they’re the same people who feel no shame saying awful things about Lindsay, or Gavin, or any of his best friends, just because they’re hidden behind a grey face and a keyboard.

 

Generally it makes him angry, in a bubbling under the surface kind of way, when they do that to them. But when it’s him – because not all of it is the outpouring of support that makes the feeling over him a bit lighter – he gets a feeling similar to a bad taste in his mouth.

 

When the AHWU video goes up (he tries not to look for things about him in Jack’s eyes or Ray’s mouth or Gavin’s face; though he can see a bit of fire in Geoff’s eyes) he catches some snide remarks and some outright shitty comments underneath it. Except then they disappear, and there’s a little bubble of something in his chest. Because then he checks Reddit (he’s going to have to delete the app off his phone and find something else to do before he starts to do it without thinking) and Michael has let forth a torrent of…Michael-ness, at a select few comments now marked [deleted].

 

-

 

Ryan makes it out to the couch, pulling the duvet with him, and sits through half a movie before he can’t stand the brightness of the TV or the louder noise of the fridge or the glow from the microwave clock and retreats to the bedroom.

 

He’s happy – overjoyed – that he can’t remember what he dreamed in the morning, but a bit uneasy that he’d probably, technically, self-medicated to do it, and that he had obviously dreamed regardless because the heavychokingdark _lonely_ fog is swirling around him again.

 

He’s glad again that he doesn’t drink anymore.

 

It doesn’t altogether fill him with a good feeling that when he looks at the clock on his phone it says 11am, and he resolves to set an alarm and get up the next day, even if he doesn’t go in to work. Bad sleeping patterns will only make him feel worse, and if they kick off a bout of insomnia he’ll be a fucking wreck.

 

Except then he just sits there in the dark, blinds drawn and duvet wrapped around him, and the only reason he doesn’t just sit like that for the rest of the day is because there’s the sound of a key in his front door and he’s on edge immediately. He feels very protective of his space and he definitely didn’t invite anyone over.

 

Geoff has a spare key, and he’s fully expecting to see the older man and be a little annoyed when the footsteps come right up to his bedroom door.

 

The surprise of it being Gavin is just enough to stop the annoyance in its tracks. Gavin doesn’t even pause at the door, just steps into the room – he’s kicked his shoes off already, Ryan notes – and sidles up next to the bed. He regards Ryan for a second, green eyes feel like they’re boring into his fucking soul (god he must look a state, he can feel his hair sticking up at all angles in what he’s sure is a much less artful way than Gavin’s, and he can feel his eyes are bloodshot), and then Gavin settles onto the bed, folding his arms behind his head and stretching out.

 

Ryan blinks. “Um…hi?” His voice sounds foreign even to him, raspy from not being used.

 

Gavin keeps his eyes shut, face turned towards the ceiling. “I took your spare key off Geoff.” He says offhandedly, like it’s perfectly normal.

 

“Why?”

 

The other man huffs impatiently. “To come and check on you, you dope. Geoff wouldn’t do it because you’ve got some weird gents pact about asking for help first. So I am.” With that Gavin launches into a retelling of the day like it’s perfectly normal and he fills all the little spaces with his strangely soothing and familiar voice.

 

Ryan can’t think of anything to say because he’s astounded Gavin’s there.  This is _Gavin_. Gavin who was scared about being part of Michael’s – who’s his best friend, by the way, completely different to the way he’s Ryan’s friend – wedding party because it was too much responsibility. Gavin who doesn’t go out of his way to do anything that isn’t work related, and Gavin who is the most laid back person in the world.

 

“Oh, I bought food too. Cause I figured you wouldn’t be eating.” Gavin says suddenly, but still in a languid, nonchalant way.

 

“You what?” Something occurs to Ryan suddenly. “Wait, did you walk here? From Geoff’s?”

 

“No. I piloted a titan.” He deadpans. “Of course I walked.”

 

Ryan’s throat goes tight for a moment and he shuts his eyes. When he opens them, sufficiently calm, Gavin’s moved his head to look at him and it’s not the pity Ryan expected to see on his face, but understanding.

 

“I bought food because _I_ didn’t eat.” Gavin says quietly, like a confession. Ryan doesn’t get a chance to say anything before he continues. “I don’t…I don’t talk about this much. Not ever, actually. I didn’t at the time and now it’s over so why discuss it.” He doesn’t seem uncomfortable, just stuck in his own head, and that Ryan can understand. “I didn’t do well, really, when we were having trouble trying to get my visa the first time.” A self-deprecating smile spreads over Gavin’s face. “Which seems dumb, 'cause I was working on a bunch of cool stuff, I just…I’d had a taste, by then.” He stretches out and Ryan thinks he’s like a cat, sometimes. A really cat-challenged cat. “You know what it’s like, being part of RVB. Or fuck, anything we do. It’s kind of…its hard work but it’s-”

 

“It’s being part of something.” Ryan confirms quietly.

 

“Yeah exactly. And then, you know, I was friends with everyone. And I kept having to leave. Then we started the process and it just took so long. Burnie kept trying to get me to come back but it was like…I’d have so much fun when I was here and then I’d have to leave and it felt like I was burning up from the inside out. So I just…stopped. And then less and less was happening as far as the visa was concerned and I just…I wasn’t in a good place.”

 

“That’s understandable.” Ryan says. And really, he knows most of this. Either from small things Gavin’s said or from things he’s heard. But it’s different hearing it all, straight from Gavin; because he can hear the way it affects him.

 

“I uh…” Gavin laughs a little, more a puff of air than anything else. “I know it sounds stupid, because really I was working on all these things that were amazing, but everything I wanted was over here. Turned into a resentful little shit really. It was like I was in this fog all the time.” Ryan wants to say he knows, he understands, but the lump in his throat is back. Gavin just keeps talking like he hasn’t been doing it for hours already. “I was just on autopilot. Except it didn’t always include general self-care. So I bought food.  Because when it was me, I didn’t eat.”

 

Ryan wants to say something when Gavin stops talking, because he feels like he should repay it somehow. But then Gavin opens his eyes and looks at him again, sees right through him. “I thought just having someone here might help, too. You don’t have to say anything – I don’t expect you to anyway – and we don’t have to do anything but I just thought…yeah…”

 

Gavin’s cheeks go a bit pink and that’s the Gavin that Ryan knows. When it comes to stuff like this he gets unsure if he’s said the right thing or done something wrong. So Ryan gives him a small smile, even if it feels strained and as strung out as the rest of him. “Well it’d be rude to turn down food, right?”

 

The grin he gets in return is wide and Gavin bounds off the bed out to the kitchen, giving Ryan a chance to pull on a pair of sweatpants over his boxer briefs and shrug into a t shirt sitting by the door to the ensuite.

 

He actually starts laughing when he sees Gavin stopped into the Mexican place down the street and got enchiladas. Gavin just looks pleased with himself.

 

-

 

Gavin coaxes him into sitting on the couch and grabs his Xbox controller. Ryan goes to sit down but thinks for a second and then goes back into his bedroom to retrieve the duvet. Gavin doesn’t say anything, just starts the movie he’s chosen. Ryan decides he’s definitely not looking into the fact that he’s apparently decided he feels safer sith the duvet wrapped around him.

 

He does leave the end of it free for Gavin, if he wants it.

 

Ryan’s very confused about the movie choice for all of a few minutes, until he realises the title card coming up is an apology about subtitles. Then he surprises himself and nearly laughs again, and pretends not to sea Gavin smirking around his food. He thinks he’s been sneaky choosing Monty Python to watch. It’s funny in a familiar, well-worn way to both of them, and doesn’t require a lot of thinking.

 

It’s a comfortable silence that settles around them, not a heavy oppressive blanket, and when Gavin realises Ryan’s left the end of the duvet trailing over to his half of the couch he curls his legs under it without a word.

 

Ryan’s not surprised that he dozes a little as the movie goes on. Apparently Gavin’s company has some kind of soothing effect on him, which is odd because he’s sure he goes out of his way to do the opposite at work. Not that Ryan minds, because it’s never boring. Ryan doesn’t do well with boredom.

 

Which is why when he picks up his phone and absentmindedly starts scrolling through reddit it doesn’t immediately occur to him that it’s a bad idea, because of course he has Roosterteeth on his front page. That there was a reason he meant to delete it and leave it for at least the rest of the week. Probably longer.

 

By the time he’s thrown his phone back onto the coffee table he can’t remember exactly what the comment said, just that it was awful and the gist of it is burned into his brain and Gavin looks very alarmed at the other end of the couch. Then Ryan realises he’s crying and it all just comes tumbling out.

 

“Ry..?”

 

“I never…I never actually tried. To kill myself, I mean. I just. I didn’t really care either way, anymore. And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter now because it’s done, like you said. I fixed it. I went and I fixed it and I’m fine now. I’m fucking better than fine, and I know what to do if I feel like maybe I’m not.” He realises he’s spiralling into a full on anxiety attack, crying and trying to breathe past the burning in his chest, for the first time in years, and that Gavin’s watching him like he’s trying to figure out what Ryan needs him to do.

 

In the end he doesn’t say a word, just scoots up the couch and pushes Ryan forward so he can slip in behind him, and Ryan’s surprised at the gentle insistence of Gavin’s hands. His chest ends up flush against Ryan’s back, one hand anchored around his waist and the other by his shoulder. He still doesn’t say anything, just breathes deep and slow and deliberate and Ryan falls into the same pattern before he’s even realised it.

 

He tries to say sorry but he feels Gavin shaking his head behind him. “Don’t be sorry Ry.” He says gently, seemingly content to sit like that. When he takes in a breath like he’s about to say something and Ryan thinks it will be so he can draw away, but Gavin surprises him again. “Does this make you feel better?” Ryan isn’t entirely sure what he means, whether it’s inappropriate to assume he means being close, practically cuddling. Thankfully Gavin clarifies. “Having me here, like this?”

 

Ryan swallows and nods, because what’s the point of lying now? Gavin’s already seen him fall mostly to pieces. “Yeah. Yeah thanks.”

 

Gavin nudges him forward. “You need to sleep.”

 

Ryan’s utterly dumbfounded ten minutes later, because Gavin talked him into having a shower and getting properly into bed, had offered to stay in the guest room and _Ryan had stopped him_. He’d said ‘it’s okay’ and Gavin had given him an encouraging little smile and asked if he wanted him to stay.

 

And Ryan said yes, because he can’t stand the thought of trying to get through the night on his own feeling so fragile and broken.

 

-

 

Ryan knows he’s dreaming again, but not because he’s watching himself. Because he remembers this happening before, crystal clear. The guys in the office like to joke about his multiple car crashes; Ryan the wrong place, wrong time guy was a favourite for a while. But there’s a lot more to it.

 

For starters, two of them had been on a motorbike.

 

He can feel the phantom grab of the feeling as he relives it in his sleep, the fog in his head dissipates and brightness explodes behind his eyes and he feels so fucking alive it reminds him of the onetime-drunk-at-a-bar bump of cocaine – everything else was his thing, but apparently not that. In hindsight, while he’s dreaming, Ryan reflects that was probably a good thing, because his piss poor self-preservation instinct probably wouldn’t have outlasted the self-destructive tendencies, had drugs been involved.

 

But the bike. It had started being enough of a distraction to be on it, with everything going past at a million miles an hour. Except, as things often went in Ryan’s life, then he wanted more. And more and more until he was overbalancing on a bend in the dark night and his shoulder felt like a starburst as it hit the gravel and then he slid.

 

He’d been more fascinated than he wanted to be with the bruises on his shoulder and the bright red marks on his leg that his jeans hadn’t much helped save him from. He imagined he’d be worse off had he not had the thick jacket on. Or the helmet.

 

He got lucky the time he decided to forgo the helmet because he’d been on a farm and not a road. But as it happened again in his dream he could feel the ghost-light thrum of adrenaline, even as it was difficult to sit up and his head throbbed.

 

It makes him ache, thinking about it. He’d been so fucking lost, moving around and working wherever he ended up doing anything he could because nowhere _fit_ right and everywhere felt so soul crushingly empty, and he has no idea why it took him so long to realise it wasn’t the place that was the problem but him.

 

Just like the other dream, this one ends differently than he remembers. Mostly because he wouldn’t be here to remember it if it had indeed ended with him coming off the bike in just jeans and a t shirt and-

 

Ryan normally wakes in a panic from dreams like that, though they don’t happen very often now anyway, unless he’s had something remind him or he’s having a bout of insomnia. Except this time it’s not something happening to him that’s waking him up; it’s fingers carding through his hair and a body carefully keeping a few inches space between them.

 

He wants to be so mad that he’s crying in front of Gavin _again_ , but he still feels strung out and bone tired and just unsettled. So he lets his friend try to make him feel better. “I have a reason, why I’m like this.” He tries to say, in gasping, halting breaths.

 

Gavin’s short fingernails scrape against his scalp. “You’re not like anything Ry. Except someone who’s just had their privacy invaded. Horribly. You’re a bit like that.” He says absentmindedly in a sleep filled voice. “And you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

 

Ryan tries to laugh in a disparaging way. It sounds more like a sob, and he sounds a lot harsher than he means because Gavin’s been so…lovely. “Don’t you know already?” He doesn’t see how Gavin can’t; if he’s been on the internet at all, as well as whatever Matt would’ve said at the meeting on Monday after he left.

 

He feels Gavin shrug behind him. “Not from you I don’t. Anything I’ve heard anywhere else – which isn’t much anyway – is never going to sound the same as hearing it from you.”

 

Ryan tries to rush it all out, not feeling coherent let alone intelligent or particularly verbose. “It took…I didn’t realise, that it was that different. From what everyone else felt all the time. That there was actually something wrong. How fucked up is that?”

 

Gavin only interjects with a typically Gavin sentence; “Well you’re you, not anybody else. How are you supposed to know?”

 

And Ryan laughs a little even though he’s still crying; now that the tears are leaking out they won’t stop. “It was literally the final straw, actually. I told myself I’d go and see someone, and if they told me there was nothing wrong that would be it, I wasn’t going to even try and be safe anymore. That’s how it started, I was just reckless. And it got…out of hand.” He’s distracted for a minute when Gavin shifts closer, presses against his back, and Ryan can feel the stubble on the younger man’s cheek against his shoulder. “It was like a shitty spiral. I finished college then my dad got sick for the first time and I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do and then I just…I felt so lonely. Like I was isolated.”

 

Gavin makes a noise over his shoulder but Ryan can tell it’s one of understanding. He had, after all, described much the same thing the day before.

 

“So I felt like I could fix it with…well, most things really. That’s why I don’t drink anymore. Drugs were never really my thing, which is probably for the best. Don’t really know how I dodged that bullet. When I did eventually see someone, it was out in California when I was there for some stupid reason, he knew straight away. Diagnosed my borderline personality disorder, and then…fuck Gav I got so lucky. It doesn’t ever happen. I mean rarely, but...”

 

“What? What happened?”

 

“Normally any kind of medications you have to test and that can take months, even to test one, and then it might not work so you have to go right back to the beginning but…mine was right first time. And it was like everything was…better, again. And that sounds so stupid but it was like I was a person again and I could feel things without them being too far one way or the other or making me want to be reckless or want to take stupid risks.” He tries to calm down because he believes what he’s saying, he really does. He knows the last few days are just a knee jerk reaction to not being in control and being made to remember things he knows he’s mostly past.

 

He gets close but he can’t quite manage to calm down all the way, still sniffing back more tears and getting lost in the slow circle of Gavin’s hand on his ribcage. He realises belatedly that he doesn’t know when that happened, and then that in other circumstances it would mean much different things.

 

Gavin noses against the back of his neck, a little tentatively, and Ryan thinks again of his cat assessment. But Gavin’s asking, he’s been asking the whole time, not taking.

 

“I…I’m more worried about work, really. I don’t…I didn’t tell people – apart from Geoff and Burnie really – because it’s not me now. Not because I didn’t trust them or care about them. If I thought it still mattered I’d say.”

 

“Everyone’s on your side you mong. Everyone knows that everyone has their own stuff that they don’t bring to work because it’s a place to get away from that stuff .They might not know what each other’s stuff is, but it’s all there. You were just unlucky, this time.”

 

Ryan thinks he feels soft lips against his skin; right on the back of his neck, but it’s lost in the middle of everything else. He feels an overwhelming surge of affection for Gavin – which isn’t entirely unusual, but having it occur when they’re in Ryan’s bed, both of them in nothing more than boxer briefs and Ryan feeling like he’s fallen apart and been put together wrong several times has never happened before. It gives him the push to turn over, so quick that Gavin doesn’t stop him – does he want to? Ryan doesn’t know. The fact that he ignores that thought he takes as a good sign – and before Gavin can catch his eye Ryan buries his face in the hollow at the base of Gavin's neck. His body’s still clinging on to the last vestiges of his summer tan, and he smells familiar and welcome.

 

It does make Ryan wonder when Gavin started _smelling_ familiar, but then he’s always been a sucker for a nice smell. He’s been a sucker for a lot of things; even after he worked through most of his issues, or replaced them with healthier versions, Ryan’s never really gotten the hang of letting people close in a more than superficial way. But he realises his life in the last few years has made him comfortable. He has long, lasting friendships with his colleagues. It makes fresh tears fill his eyes, for different reasons.

 

Gavin seems to hesitate a moment before Ryan feels a hand drop into his hair, and Gavin curls around him a little, locking them together. He doesn’t tell him to ‘shh’ or that it’s okay – Ryan knows it’s okay, that’s the whole problem – he just strokes his fingers through Ryan’s hair with their heads resting together.

 

“Don’t you have to be at work?” Ryan asks eventually, when he’s exhausted from the tears that are only just stopping. He’s not sure what time it is, just that it must be morning and Gavin isn’t moving.

 

“Nah.”

 

When Gavin doesn’t elaborate, Ryan shifts back a little so he can raise an eyebrow. He’s sure some of the effect is lost because he’s a tear-stained wreck, but he means it all the same. A flush spreads across Gavin’s cheeks and he angles his head away so he can’t possibly meet Ryan’s eyes. Ryan’s very confused. “What do you mean ‘nah’?”

 

Gavin blushes a little redder. “I…well…Ry, don’t be mad, please Ryan. I just….moved some stuff around and then I told Geoff...” He takes what he thinks is a sneaky glance up to catch Ryan’s still raised eyebrow and ducks his head immediately. “I told Geoff I was coming to check on you and…and that…” He trails off into a mumble that Ryan catches none of.

 

“That what?” Ryan prompts.

 

“That I wasn’t coming back ‘till I knew you were okay.” Gavin still has his head down and he says it very quickly, then he looks up and Ryan can see the worry that he’s said the wrong thing back again. “I saw your face on Monday when you left and I…” Gavin shrugs helplessly.

 

But it’s okay, because Ryan knows that’s where he trips up; explaining his motivations and thought process. He buries his face back in Gavin’s chest – Ryan supposes pelt might be a better word, especially if he’s still running with the cat metaphor, but it’s soft and very Gavin for some reason, so it’s okay ( _lovely_ , his brain helpfully supplies) – and breathes deeply, trying to avoid the tears that are coming because he can’t believe that Gavin would do that. Gavin who prides himself in his work and work ethic.

 

His mother has always called him broody, but Ryan supposes he’s due an outburst. And at the moment with everything piling on top of each other Ryan can’t work out why he’s crying, just that he’s started and stopping was fleeting if at all.

 

Gavin has both of his arms wrapped around Ryan’s head in something like a gentle bear hug, one of his hands still toying with Ryan’s hair. “Ryaaan…don’t be upset with me Ryan.” He sounds so plaintive it nearly makes Ryan laugh.

 

“I’m not upset with _you_ , you fucking idiot.” He says softly, not lifting his head.

 

“Oh…well that’s okay then.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is part one of a verse. Part two is on its way.


End file.
